Starcraft II launches July 27 | Hacker News Reader

Starcraft II launches July 27

gamespot.com

147 points32ftpersecond70 comments

The Starcraft II beta is kind of horrifying--their excellent matchmaking ensures games are always very intense. Pardo actually commented on this at the Game Developer's Conference:

"If your matchmaking is really good, it means that for every single game, you're kind of the edge of your seat," Pardo said. "After you play an hour or two of games like that, you're kind of exhausted. So we're actually talking about, 'Is that the right matchmaking approach?' You might want to add a little sloppiness to the matchmaking. Maybe that means sometimes you get stomped, but sometimes you have easier games. And sometimes you have the really competitive games. It's got better pacing.

(From http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99211-Battle-net-S...)

So there's that interesting human element there--how wide do your want your matchmaking algorithm to get? Personally, I enjoy the nightmare intensity; it means I more easily get my fill for the night. Is only being able to play a few games at a time actually a bad thing? I guess it might be from Blizzard's perspective.

If you're in the beta, try playing 2v2 with a friend against the Internet. If you're losing you can at least lose together. Think of it as a co-founder ;)

From what I think I've noticed...

It tries to match you as evenly as possible to start.

If you get hot, it will find better players.

If you lose a bunch, it will try matching you with worse ones.

(based on ranking)

I play platinum 2v2 and gold 1v1 and that's been what i've noticed. It feels like it's sorta testing out where you belong and fit in at every point in time. It also widens the matching if it can't find anyone rather than waiting... those games can get ugly fast in any direction.

PS - cheesy strats sometimes work on really good players because they forget how silly they are. I cannon rushed a guy sitting in the top of platinum league yesterday and I haven't seen anyone rage that hard in a while.

I'm pretty sure it's just using a slightly modified Elo rating, and the updating the ladders on a weekly cron. The reason I say this is that when I first signed up, it assigned me to Silver league. I lost a bunch (it was before the beta was opened more widely and everyone there was good) at first. Then I got considerably better and won something like 17/20 games, but got bumped down to Bronze.

I can't think of any reason why I could get bumped down after a considerable winning streak other than a cron, especially since it always told me my opponent was a favorite over me and was presumably a higher Elo. It had to have been accounting for the 20 or so games I lost before I figured out what I was doing, otherwise I would have been bumped down far sooner.

(Bronze was a cakewalk, I won most games in a few minutes.)

Then they did a reset and now I'm in Silver and winning more than not. I might actually make Gold whenever the cron runs next.

I don't think it's a cron, I've been promoted instantly the first time I was playing after winning a lot and getting ranked #1 in the division.

Indeed, if the system is really elo based then updates should be basically instant. A cron job is only required for rankings in which everyone scores relative to eachother.

The elo is updated instantly. The leagues do not seem to be. The ladders within the division (ie. rank 1-100) does seem to update in real time and takes more than just elo into account.

I say this because I rapidly advanced in my division (from 95 to 35) and yet got knocked down. Perhaps I am reading too much into it and they just did a one-off division restructuring.

There is most definitely an underlying ELO system. I don't know why they have the double system though... points and elo. It's matching against ELO I believe but the points and bonus pool crap it to encourage people to keep playing perhaps?

So after playing LoL for awhile, which has a much sloppier matchup algo (it's harder to do accurately in 5 v 5 than 1 v 1) I have to tell you, better is better. The intensity of matches is part of what's made me switch to SC2.

The problem with the sloppy algo is that it's rarely fun. 45% of the time you're crushing the other team so easily that it's kinda boring. 45% of the time you have 0 shot of winning, and know this in a few minutes but it takes a half hour or more. 10% of the time it's close and then it's actually fun.

I agree completely regarding LoL. Their matchmaking system is supposed to give you a 50% chance of winning any given match (according to their wiki). I usually pre-made with 2-4 friends, and we almost always lost. We were low levels (10-15) being matched up against five level 30's. Needless to say, we were getting crushed every time. I think I had a 15 game losing streak or something when I pre-made.

Their wiki says they make the matches harder when you pre-make with friends because they figure that you will be harder to beat. I got so tired of the uneven matchmaking that I can't bring myself to play it anymore.

They do. They add 120 to each player's ELO when queuing as a premade. The actual advantage you get from playing together ranges from much more than that (with a full team of players who coordinate well) to much less (a 2 man and a 3 man combined who don't coordinate well). We win almost every 5 man we play because we coordinate well, and none of us are that great individually so when we solo play our ELO drops.

Also, as I told Tom "Zileas" Cadwell, you can easily have a matchmaking algorithm that ensures you win 50% of the time but is not fun. If 50% of the time you're playing against hopeless newbs, and 50% of the time you're playing against the top guys, you'll win half but have fun on 0. LoL is not far from this.

LoL's matchmaking has 3 main problems that I can tell.

1. Radically different advantages to premades. Some premades get much more benefit than others. Starcraft 2 takes this into account by giving each unique premade its own rating. So if I play a 2v2 with my friend John, he and I will get a unique rating that doesn't affect matchups when I play 2v2s with my friend Chad. I'm not sure if this is an option for LoL given that it's often 5v5 (might work better on Treeline, which is 3v3) and a team is often comprised of one small premade and a few randoms, or 2 smaller premades.

2. Traction. They don't have enough people in the queue at any given point to create good matchups in a reasonable timeframe.

3. Elo. Elo ratings were meant for deterministic heads up matches. In chess, Elo works because the player who won simply played better.

LoL tries to compensate by determining why your team won or lost (and what part of that was your skill or lack thereof) when handing out the points. This is VERY hard to do well.

I understand the philosophy behind adding to a player's ELO when doing a premade. But I feel that part of the problem is that relatively new and inexperienced players (which I consider myself and the people I premade with) are going to be matched with higher ranked players. This makes it really hard and discouraging for you to play and get better when you are constantly losing to better players.

Personally, I enjoy playing the game with friends, it's more fun that way ... just not so much when you are losing badly every time.

> I'm not sure if this is an option for LoL given that it's often 5v5 ... and a team is often comprised of one small premade and a few randoms, or 2 smaller premades.

Wouldn't the matching algorithm be calculating ratings for each distinct premade, regardless of whether it's a complete team?

So whether [You+Chad] are playing 3v3 with a pug, or 5v5 with any variant of three PUG+pre-made players, shouldn't you always be working on the [You+Chad] rating?

Citation needed. I read that they changed premade ELO adjustments to be negligible for bad players and high for good players. This was like a year ago or around that.

Well, my citation is an email sent to me by Tom "Zileas" Cadwell. I've talked to the Riot guys quite a bit, they actually play our Facebook game. I even got to check my elo :)

He didn't get into too great detail though so it's possible I misunderstood and it actually is a sliding scale, though I've seen no evidence of that (and quite a bit of the opposite).

Zileas is a pretty smart dude, and they've been working on this for a while. I can't find the post I was talking about, but this one hints at the adjustments: https://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=12029

"This bonus is calculated from a bunch of research we did on hundreds of thousands of game results to figure out how much of an advantage being in a team is. We do some behind the scenes adjustments as well for stuff like beginners paired with pros, etc."

Some opaque, out of context statistical data: http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=16705

Personally, the matchmaking seems to me to get better and better the more players pick up the game. I still see unbalanced games, but I can't remember the last legitimate curb stomp, where one team was simply outclassed...

I've been in the beta for a while now and I can confirm this is the case. I actually laughed when I read your post, because I definitely play 2s to relax after an intense 1s session.

Well, I am not in beta but I like this approach. It is much better to play a close game than to get destroyed by someone that is so much better than you that there is no contest. And of course while it is sometimes fun to stomp on a newbie, that gets old too.

You learn the most from close games. You learn nothing from beating someone much worse than you. And when you are destroyed by someone much better you also usually do not learn much because you are so far behind that usually you do not know what hit you.

I end up getting demolished on every round. Starcraft 1 was so long ago.....

If you're in Bronze league, seriously just reaper rush every game.

I find I learn the most just watching replays on YouTube.

Since this seems to be the thread for beta participants

who wants a game?

I'm themaroon there.

designori.cta, platinum, US server.

2v2's are fantastic, but sometimes a chosen team gets matched against a random team, which usually results in a lame game. Hopefully this is due to the beta having fewer people

If it takes less than say 3 minutes to find a match, and I can win at least say 25% of the matches, I'll be happy.

I've been playing the Beta for several weeks, I think the longest I've waited for a game has been about 20 seconds, and apart from the initial few placement matches (to enable it to rank you at the beginning), they've all been reasonably close, entertaining games.

I can only assume that at retail with even higher numbers of players it will be even quicker to find a game.

Hmm I wonder if there will be a causal relationship between this release and a bunch of startups deadpooling . . .

I prefer being optimistic: it gives me a great incentive to have the new product launched (and thus past the point where I work long stretches of consecutive hours) by 7/27.

If I'm still knee deep in Twilio code then, well, no Starcraft for me. If I'm launched and just waiting for Google to start ranking me, blocking on A/B test results, or otherwise not very active, well, I know how to make the waiting more pleasant.

as a Beta participant I'll testify it is addictive. However Ladder games are just high speed chess and really get your mental juices flowing in general.

Any fans should check out the HDH Invitational tournament underway: http://www.youtube.com/user/hdstarcraft , http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft (these guys sportcast SC games and consistently have more viewers than ESPN's youtube channel)

speaking about addiction - this game ruined my late teen years. i still remember spending an entire day in my room battling it out with guys half-way across the world :-)

can't wait for it to come out. thankfully i have a social life, work, and other good things in my life now so i should be able to control myself :-)

Ah yes, hope springs eternal :P

Second that. These guys have really been working on their presentation. It's hard to believe they're amateurs doing it in their spare time.

Amazing how a game that hasn't been released yet has such a vibrant community! Makes me want to be part of it and get SC2 when it comes out.

I used to play SC1 back in the day, but haven't played that many games since (major exception being COD4 on hardcore/tactical servers).

It could kill me... I thought I played ~40 games since last reset (1-2 weeks ago?) but I actually counted yesterday... somewhere near 100.

For those who didn't know, you can pre-order from Amazon, Best Buy, or Gamestop and get a beta key, so that Starcraft II can destroy your life before it even ships.

Last night, at 7 PM, there were 25,000 people on Battle.net, so it's a fairly large beta.

I think one of the reasons I switched to Linux is to prevent myself from playing this game when it comes out. We'll see if it works.

Boy did I waste enough time on battlenet.

It might run under wine, I know warcraft 3 did :P

And speaking of Starcraft 2 and coding, here is a Raphael.js / jQuery web app that matches up units currently in the Beta against each other: http://scstrategy.com/matchup

On a side note, I'm still very much waiting on Diablo3. One day...

The purpose of SC2 is to keep your mind off Diablo 3. One day you'll wake up and it'll be there, and you'll be a very happy man

Damn you Blizzard, for making games I love to play.

I just got myself off WoW.

Now this, and Diablo 3 coming later...

In other news, the Korean economy is expected to contract from August.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/ccr/blog/2009/04/post_17.html "Saving the Economy with Starcraft"

>According to Lee, there are almost 20,000 PC Bangs in Korea and they collectively make about 120 billion wons (about 100 million US dollars) every month. Lee has also stated that “This is not the only source of economic influence achieved by gaming. There are three cable channels for starcraft leagues and tournaments, as well as thirteen other professional teams. These game broadcasts have potentials to be exported into other countries, just like how Korean dramas were actively exported throughout Asia during 2002-2006.”

But you fail to account for all the starcraft 2 related projects that will crop up and the revitalization of starcraft related businesses ;)

Really way too soon for me to start promoting my little side project, but I guess I could use some feedback on the idea before I start investing too much of my spare time...

Anyway, I'm planning on launching something I call the Starcraft 2 University (http://sc2uni.com), which (hopefully) will help people find tutors for personal training sessions (the idea comes from online poker where this is quite popular). I'd love some feedback on the idea - the site currently up is simply just for collecting some e-mails - none of my actual code is up yet (although I'm planning to go with this layout and "design language").

I thought with a Linux box and a Macbook I would never really play games on a computer again, minus the odd casual flash/javascript game.

Then I got the SC2 Beta from a friend. Oh man, so awesome.

(Not addicted .. but oh so fun. Love Blizzard)

I'm also extremely happy that it will be released on OSX too. I hope this is part of a new trend now that Macs are selling better than a few years ago (and the Intel hardware can't hurt).

That trend may or may not be happening, but Blizzard has always released their games on Mac, so I wouldn't use this for evidence one way or the other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(content_delivery)#Mac_OS...

"With its release, Valve will include native Mac OS X, OpenGL versions of Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Portal, and the entire Half-Life series. Portal 2, due by the end of 2010, will be simultaneously released on both the Windows and Mac versions of Steam."

May 12th! Between steam for OS X, SC2, and eventually WoW: Cataclysm, I'm not going to be getting anything done this summer. =(

That is a pretty awesome development. Hopefully other steam developers will jump on board.

Thank god. Releasing this before school gets out would have been truly nefarious.

I have always been AOE follower, I have been observing the hype over Starcraft lately and wondering how is Starcraft different from AOE? (its like is it something huge I am missing)

Yes, there is no contest -- Starcraft is by far the better game. Everything about it is better.

The other difference is Koreans. They rule at SC.

Age of Empires?

Totally different style of play. It's very similar to the difference between Halo and UT2k4. Not only do the econs function differently, I always felt that SC was more micro intensive, or at least when it actually comes to combat.

SC also used more soft counters compared to AOE with more hard counters. What I mean by that is that in AOE (from what I remember, its been years), counters are more or less put down in stone. If your mass of pikemen ran into a mass of footmen, then your pikemen would more or less get raped. Same with cavalry charging into pikemen. No amount of micro will save you. In SC, even when your army has been countered (your muta swarm runs into a huge mass of medics and marines), it's possible (very hard, but possible) to snatch away at least a partial victory with the proper application of micro.

The games also feel completely different when the three races are fundamentally different, as opposed to being more or less the same with different bonuses and special units.

Whatever I put above has been clouded by the fact that I have never seen really high level AOE play, and have spent days of my life watching high level SC.

Welcome to SC2, where hard counters make an appearance. Rather than only having damage cuts, like SC1, they now have bonus damage, which can make an ENORMOUS difference. If you're zerg and rolling out a bunch of roaches, you'd better make sure he's not building immortals, or you're in for some pain.

The Mac beta is finally available for users in Europe, I'm currently downloading the 3 GB file, I'm assuming the latest patches are already included because the filesize is significantly larger then on Windows.

In other news, Korea's GDP is expected to plummet starting around July 28th.

Can anyone comment on technical requirements (at least of the beta, which should give a good idea for the final game)?

Any idea how it would run on a 2008 Mac Pro with the base ATI GPU (2600 HD iirc)?

I've been playing on my MBP w/ 2.4 ghz c2d and 8600m and its been working surprisingly well. I dialed down the setting just to maximize FPS, but other than weird choppiness with the menu screen the game has been very stable.

I'm pretty new to the game but I'm starting to get the hang of it, if anyone wants to skirmish or give me some tips my id is corohd.warpath

I'm not sure exactly what hardware that entails, but I'll guarantee you can at least play the game. Perhaps not with every setting on Ultra, but with some fine tuning I'm sure it'd play fine. The game scales well.

not sure what the base ATI GPU then was, but I know the GeForce 7300 GTs in mine have driver issues preventing compatibility.

Forum with mac beta system reqs listing is at http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=24630623195&...

In general, folks have been able to run much higher graphic settings on windows in bootcamp than on the mac itself.

I'm really lucky it runs really bad on a MBP, if I want to get into that timesink I'll have to invest on a gaming pc, hopefully I can fight the urge for a while.

yep, I'm happy that my final exams are over

Not mine... Sigh.

Please, not SCII. I'M NOT GOING TO BUY IT. OK?

Say it with me:

I PROMISE NOT TO BUY SCII INSTEAD OF BUILDING MY COMPANY

I will build my Nexus first.

You require more minerals.

You require more vespine gas!

Your Nexus... one?

Do both?

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